When a leading packaging manufacturer decided to automate its link between manufacturing and its warehouse, while also creating dense storage of its finished goods, it encountered a significant challenge: stacking two 52-inch-tall loads with empty plastic bottles or four unitized loads on slip sheets in its warehouse.
The manufacturing system automatically tracks production, as well as the inventory at hand. Because the warehouse is a large, open space with most of its columns embedded deep behind stacks of tall loads, a normal approach to laser guidance could not be taken.
As a result, a full service automatic guided vehicle (AGV) system provider was chosen to provide an innovative and economical solution— laser navigation at 20 feet on a movable “mast.” In addition to using this laser navigation and mast, the supplier also used the same AGV for loads on pallets and slip sheets, saving the manufacturer time and money.
Using two laser-guided fork vehicles with an automatic, movable laser mast (for different ceiling heights), the AGVs are able to link the manufacturer’s six production pickup locations with one centralized stretch wrapper and then the warehouse.
Within the manufacturer’s warehouse, the AGVs perform the stacking and deep lane storage of more than 2,300 load locations in 160 lanes, all monitored by the system’s manager, which features an inventory control module.
Unitized 104-inch-tall loads are then stacked two high, as well as up to four high for 52-inch-tall loads on pallets or slip sheets. Intelligent, automatic battery charging stations provide equalization charge schedules, which maximizes battery life, while minimizing system downtime.
Amerden AGVS
(904) 826-4490
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